Aesop
by creativetherapy
Summary: Retitled from the working title "Clear and Present Danger" A series of bomb threats has the team on edge, but that may only be the beginning of their worries. This is a continuation of the arc established in Coincidence and Way Out. Whole team, Reid-centric. Please R/R
1. Chapter 1

"Alright, now concentrate." Spencer Reid tried unsuccessfully to stifle a grin as Avery sat, dissolved in laughter. It had been a mounting exchange of literary puns, and he couldn't be sure if any other person in the world would have found it funny. The breeze coming in from the open window chilled the room, and he wiggled his bare feet to warm them against the cool wood floor of his apartment, but Avery's laugh filled him with a welcome warmth.

"Shut up." Avery choked out good-naturedly between fits of giggles.

"No, you've almost got me." Reid insisted, laughing.

"Oh, you liar, I do not." Avery retorted, regaining her composure and wiping a tear from her eye.

"Okay. Focus." Spencer told her again.

Avery stared hard at the chess board in front of her. Despite what she was certain was the good doctor's noble attempt to take it easy on her, she was losing abysmally. The pile of clothes flung onto the floor- one article for every piece captured – was proof of that. Six months of strip chess, and she didn't feel she was getting any better. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to. Her back shivered against a cool gust from the window, clad only in the band and straps of her bra.

"Okay." She forced a serious face, hiding a smile behind a sip from her wine glass next to the board.

"Alright." Spencer explained. "Now, mathematically speaking, all chess games are a simple variation of a finite number of possible moves, meaning -"

"I'm an artist, darling, not a mathematician." Avery reminded him dryly as she slowly picked up a piece and moved it carefully across the board.

"Check." She beamed proudly. "And that would be the shirt, Dr. Reid."

Spencer grinned and began to remove his green sweater, only to be interrupted by the familiar chirping of his cell phone.

"No!" Avery groaned disappointedly.

With frustration, Reid lowered his shirt, brushing his hair back into place as he picked up the phone and read the text.

"I gotta go." He said, his voice filled with equal disappointment. "I'm sorry."

Avery sighed as Spencer gathered his things.

"Be careful." She said, watching him move about the room.

"Always." Spencer smiled as he leane over and kissed her.

"I love you." Avery told him, brushing a curling lock gently away from his face.

"I love you, too." He replied earnestly. "Checkmate."

Avery looked in surprise at the board, where, with one quick, unnoticed move Spencer had finished the game.

"Don't worry. We'll pick up where we left off when I get back." He added cheekily as he closed the door behind himself.


	2. Fables

"Someday." Morgan said to Rossi. "Someday we're actually going to get a night off."

He looked up as Reid entered the round room.

"How about you?" He asked as the young agent entered. "You have any plans tonight?"

"Just teaching Avery chess." Reid panned quickly, picking up one of the folders from the desk and looking at it.

"Thanks for coming in." Hotchner closed the door as he entered, looking about the room at the agents. "We don't have a lot of time, so let's get to work. Half an hour ago, three bombs were detonated between here and D.C. One outside a closed diner, one at a thankfully empty bus stop, and one at the top of a subway station."

"Any threats?" J.J asked.

"We're not certain, but for the past week, these have been delivered to offices across departments." Hotch passed around photographs of letters to the team. Each letter was typed neatly, center justified and in small typeface.

Rossi looked at one of the letters.

"A wild boar stood under a tree and rubbed his tusks against the trunk. A fox passing by asked him why he sharpened his teeth.

"There is no danger," the fox said "from either huntsman or hound"

The boar replied "It would never to do have to sharpen my weapons when I ought to be use using them."

"Sounds like a kid's story." Morgan said.

"It's a fable." Spencer corrected. "A short story usually characterized by animals or objects that speak and solve problems, with the end result of conveying some sort of wisdom or moral."

"Be prepared." Rossi said.

"So this guy sent out warnings a week in advance telling the FBI to be prepared." J.J said. "Who did he send them to?"

"Looks like any address he could find." Spencer said, scanning a short list of addresses. "Including Cruz."

Hotchner nodded.

"So he's targeting the FBI as a whole." Rossi said.

"We're not sure," Hotch said, "but we need to get moving. Counterterrorism and Domestic Terrorism are already investigating. D.C agents are handling the subway and bus stop bombings in D.C, which means we stay close to home and check out the restaurant."

The glare and flash of emergency vehicle lights and buzz of curiosity, excitement and panic pulsed through what would ordinarily have been a quiet street at such a late hour. Trucks and police tape kept a growing crowd at a distance, while news vans and reporters did their best to get a shot of Cathy's Diner in their shot.

The windows were blown out of the front of the diner, shrapnel scattered well into the street and down the block. Bricks, beams and other bits of the diner's structure were ripped from their places, bent, warped and burned and tossed pell-mell over the scene.

"The center of the blast seems to have come from outside." Arson investigator Henry Norfolk reported to Hotchner. "Looks like there was a bench here. My guess is the bomb was left either on or near it. I've got my guys sifting through debris, now, trying to see if we can piece it together. Doesn't look like it was very big, though."

"This guy didn't want to hurt anybody." Morgan shook his head. "Quiet street, closed restaurant."

"He was looking to get our attention." Rossi finished.

"He got it." J.J said.

Hotchner turned to the team, looking over their heads to the lingering crowd. "J.J, you take a camera. Get as many shots of the crowd as you can. Morgan, you work with the bomb squad, see what you can find. Reid, you, me, and Rossi will comb the scene and see if we can figure out why this was the target."

Reid looked around. By all accounts, there was nothing exceptional about the area. He walked to the edge of the diner where the window, were it still there, would have nested snugly into the brick corner of the building. He turned around, looking toward the epicenter of the explosion, trying to puzzle out the details of what still seemed a bizarre and seemingly random case.

Something caught his attention from the corner of his eye, and he turned his head. An old newspaper dispenser stood near the corner of the building, battered, but otherwise intact. He frowned, taking a step closer and peering through the clouded plexiglass window.

"Hey, guys." He called, putting on a pair of latex gloves and digging around in his pocket for change. He slipped a dollar's worth of quarters into the slot and opened the door as Rossi and Hotchner walked over to him.

On top of the pile of papers lay a sealed envelope. Spencer removed it, opening it carefully.

"It's another fable." He said, his brow knit with confusion. "A doe had the misfortune to lose one of her eyes, and could not see anyone approaching her from that side. So, to avoid danger, she fed on a high cliff near the sea, with her good eye looking toward the land. This way, she could see when hunters approached, and could escape. But the hunters found out that she was blind in one eye, and so hired a boat to row under the cliff where she used to feed, and shot her from the sea.

"So if our unsub sees himself as one of the hunters," Rossi mused

"He's saying no matter what we do, we'll never catch him." Hotchner finished. "Let's get this off to the lab for prints, and bring in CSI to see what they can get off the stand."

Reid folded the letter, the words resonating uncomfortably within him.

Hotchner pulled his cell phone from his pocket.

"Garcia, we found a note from our unsub. I need you to get in touch with the teams at the other sites, see if any other notes have been found." He said.

"I'm on it, sir." Penelope confirmed.


	3. Left-Handed

"So what are we looking at, here?" J.J. Leaned back in her chair, finger on her temple as she studied the white board at the head of the conference table. The board was covered in photos of the bomb sites. The early morning light filtered through the blinds and crept across the table, which was strewn with manilla folders filled with any and all information that could possibly help.

"Nobody's come forward to claim responsibility, yet," Rossi pointed out "which is unusual if our bomber belongs to a larger organization."

"True, but we still can't rule out terrorism." Hotchner stared intently at the board. "So let's focus on what we do know."

"During the day all of the bomb sites would have been highly populated." Spencer mused "we can assume the Unsub detonated the bombs at night to avoid hurting people, while still sending the message that he could, if he had wanted to."

"Right, because he's not doing it to harm people. He wants attention." J.J. Confirmed

"I think he wants us to know what he's capable of." Replied Spencer. "Take a look at the notes, all sending the same message – he's planning more, and we can't stop him."

"His next target is going to involve people." Hotchner nodded.

"And lots of them, unless we find him first." Rossi agreed. "What about his letters? Why fables?"

"There are different stories surrounding the character of Aesop, the earliest dating back to the first century AD, though stories almost certainly existed in some form or another before that." Spencer sat up, speaking rapidly. "Probably the most popular is a folkbook generally called _The Aesop Romance_, which tells the story of Aesop, a slave who was given the gift of storytelling to confound his master so much he eventually frees him."

"So if the unsub identifies with Aesop," J.J strung the thoughts together "he sees himself as oppressed. Since the letters were all directed to the FBI, maybe he views us as the oppressors."

"Garcia," Hotchner looked across the table to where Penelope Garcia sat, tuned in to her laptop, her fingers busily clicking away on the keys and networking with the other departments examining the case.

"Look for any individuals questioned in FBI cases in the past ten years. People who were eventually cleared, but whose lives might have been negatively affected by the investigation."

"Oh, sir," Garcia winced doubtfully "I will do my best, but my gut says there are gonna be a whole lotta names."

"The letters were sent out at random." J.J offered. "So maybe the target of the unsub's anger no longer works for us."

"Look for cases that were led by agents who are now retired, deceased, or under protection." Rossi suggested.

"Thanks." Garcia nodded. "I will see where that gets me."

"I'm going to check in with Derek. See what the lab has on the bombs." Hotchner pulled his phone from his pocket.

"Yeah, Hotch." Derek answered. He stood in a wide, mostly white laboratory, bits of detonated bomb painstakingly pieced back together on a table in front of him.

_"Anything on the bomb?"_

"No, looks pretty standard." He sounded discouraged. "Anyone with an internet connection and basic equipment could rig this up."

_"He hasn't developed a style yet."_

"Everything else about the crimes suggest he wants to be recognized." Derek noted "Maybe he's still new at this."

_"Thanks for the update. See you back here."_

"Yeah." Derek Morgan hung up the phone, slipping it back into his pocket as the tech analyst approached.

"You got good news for me?" He asked. The analyst shrugged, shifting the clipboard in her hands back and forth.

"The one thing I could tell you isn't very scientific." She admitted. "If I had to guess, I'd say whoever your bomber is is left-handed."

"How can you tell?" Derek's brow furroughed.

"The way the soldering is done." The analyst leaned in closer, pointing to a small scrap of bomb where a portion of soldering was still visible. "It's barely noticeable, but do you see how the solder is just slightly thicker there? It's slightly different with a right-handed solder."

"How did you even see that?" Derek asked, squinting at the scrap.

"My dad's an electrical engineer and I used to build circuit boards for him as a summer job." She admitted. "He used to tease me about my left-handed solderwork."

"Thanks." Derek couldn't help but sound mildly impressed as he shook hands with the analyst and excused himself.

"So our bomber is left-handed. Well, that narrows things down." Ross said skeptically.

"Garcia, how are you coming on that list?" Hotchner finished his fourth cup of coffee and set down the cup.

"I'm working, but even with the parameters you gave me, sir, it is a _long_ list." Garcia shook her head.

"Okay," Derek took a breath "Well, he's operating close to home, let's assume he lives in the area. What can you give me?"

"Well, that certainly narrows it down – what?" A pinging noise caught Garcia's attention and she expanded a background browser. "Oh, no..."

"What?" Spencer asked, looking up from the file he had been reading.

"A boy was just found dead." Garcia swallowed, feeling, as usual, the deep, throbbing ache she always felt when reviewing reports. "He was strangled and dumped on the football field of George Mason High School in Falls Church."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Derek asked skeptically.

"Police found a note similar to the ones the bomber has been sending."

With a few swift keystrokes, she cast the image on her screen to the television behind her. A photograph of a letter, neatly folded and written in the same clean typeface appeared on the screen, each of the agents straining to read it.

_"You must know that sometimes old women like a glass of wine. One of this sort once found a wine skin lying on the road, and eagerly went up to it, hoping to find it full. But when she took it up she found that all the wine had been drunk out of it. Still, she took a long stiff at the mouth of the jar._

_"Ah," she cried, "what memories cling 'round the instruments of our pleasure."_


	4. Tyler Adams

The sun beat down on the high school football field. Late summer meant the number of students walking through the area would be blissfully few. Only a handful of students in for summer training, which had naturally been canceled once the body was found.

Agent Aaron Hotchner and Dr. Spencer Reid walked the distance from the sidelines to the goal post. Crime Scene Investigators already swarmed the area like bees swarming overripe fruit. At the center of the mayhem lay Tyler Adams, previously a high school freshman, now blue and lifeless against the green turf and yellow goal post.

"Agent Aaron Hotchner, FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit." Hotchner introduced himself to an approaching investigator.

"CSI Ian Perry." The sandy-haired man responded.

"What can you tell me?" Hotchner asked.

"He's been dead a few hours at most." Perry responded. "He was beaten, but cause of death was almost certainly the strangulation. Probably with a rope."

"How severe were his injuries?" Spencer asked, not taking his eyes off the body, absorbing every possible detail.

"Relatively speaking, they were pretty minor." The CSI responded. "We'll know more after an autopsy, but at a glance, it looks more like your school-yard fight."

"Except he ended up strangled." Spencer corrected.

"And linked to three bombings." Aaron Hotchner sounded doubtful and confused as he reached for his phone and hit speed dial. "Garcia, what can you tell me about Tyler Adams?"

"I can tell you nothing." Garcia responded. "At least nothing that would be of any remote good to you. He was a model student, never got into trouble, well-liked by the other kids. On the honor roll -"

"Is he connected to any previous FBI cases?" Hotchner demanded.

"Sir, when I say never got into trouble, that applies to his whole family. I can find exactly nothing linking them to any FBI investigations, past, but unfortunately not present or future. He was clean."

"So he was a random target." Hotchner concluded. "Thanks Garcia."

"You are always welcome, Sir."

"Look at his clothes." Spencer remarked, once his superior had hung up the phone. "Late summer and he's wearing heavy pants."

"It's more than that." Hotchner noticed. "The clothes look outdated. Look, the pants still have a thrift store tag on them. Corduroy pants and a sweater vest are hardly the typical attire of the average popular high schooler. I'm willing to bet the unsub dressed him. Let's get back, see what the others have come up with."

Hotchner turned his back on the scene, heading once again across the football field and toward the parking lot.

"I think he looks nice." Spencer muttered simply, turning and following his fellow agent.

"This doesn't make any sense." Derek shook his head. "This unsub reached out to us to make a point. Now he picks a victim at random, and completely changes his M.O?"

"How he kills and who he kills aren't as important as his message." Rossi suggested.

"Maybe the bombs were for attention and now he's recreating a crime that has special significance to him." J.J ventured "It would explain why he dressed the victim."

"What memories cling 'round the instruments of our pleasure." Spencer quoted. "Guys, what if he's reliving a previous crime he committed? One that was never solved?"

"Like an anniversary killing?" J.J asked

"Aesop's fables are filled with lowly characters outwitting their betters. Maybe our unsub is mocking us – telling us he's smarter for having outwitted us before?"

"It sends us back to square one, but it's a theory." Hotchner nodded. "Garcia -"

"I'm already on it." Garcia confirmed from her place at the end of the conference table. "Going through unsolved murders and missing persons cases that match the description of Tyler Adams."

"The clothes were outdated." J.J remarked. "Try looking specifically at cases in the late seventies to late 80s."

"Gotcha." Penelope responded vaguely over the sounds of keys clacking. "It's going to take me a while, but I'll let you know what I find."

Spencer stood at the counter of the small employee kitchenette, stirring his coffee absent-mindedly. Details of the case tumbled through his head, familiar yet disjointed, as if reaching for one-another, trying to connect themselves.

The buzzing emanating from his pocket startled him out of his thoughts and he reached for his phone.

"Dr. Spencer Reid." He answered.

"Hey, you." Avery's voice on the other end was familiar, but not as warm as usual. Something seemed different about it, as though she were distracted.

"Avery, hi." Spencer stifled a surprised smile at hearing her voice. "Wait, you sound different. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, yeah." Avery responded in a tone that was not at all convincing. "How's the case going? The media's going bonkers over the bombings."

Spencer nodded. The team had withheld the connection of the bombings and Tyler Adam's murder. To the rest of the world it looked like a tragic, but unrelated incident.

"We're doing what we can." He responded simply but reassuringly. "Are you sure you're okay? You just... you don't usually call."

"Yeah," Avery repeated again "Yeah, I'm fine. I got this - "

"Reid!" The tone in Hotchner's voice caught the doctor's attention immediately. Combined with the stormy look on the agent's face, Spencer knew there was no good news.

"Avery, I'm sorry, I've got to go." He said quickly. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, of course." He wasn't sure, but her voice sounded equal parts disappointed and relieved. "I'll talk to you when you get home."

"I'll call you." The doctor promised. "I love you."

"Love you, too."

Spencer ended the call, taking a breath as he slipped the phone back into his pocket and prepared himself to walk back into the conference room. He knew what Hotch was going to say before he even finished crossing the door frame.

"There's another body."


	5. Body Count

"This is...weird, and I'm really, really, really sorry, I am, but," Garcia winced against her own words "I have nothing that links the bombing with Tyler Adams and our newest victim."

"62 year old Eleanor Marks." Hotchner explained to the team as Penelope pulled the crime-scene photos up on the television screen. "A homeless woman who had been in and out of rehab and mental health facilities since the mid-80s."

"Wait, was she -" J.J began

"It looks like she's been electrocuted." Spencer finished the thought.

"Unfortunately, yes." Penelope nodded. "Yet another change in M.O, yet another letter from the killer."

With the press of a button, the team was once again reading a typed note, neat creases across the text where the paper had been folded.

_"A dog, crossing a bridge over a stream with a piece of flesh in his mouth saw its own shadow in the water. Mistaking it for another dog, with with a piece of meat double his own in size, he immediately let go of his own and fiercely attacked the other dog to get his larger piece from him. He thus lost both: that which he grasped at in the water, for it was a shadow, and his own, for the stream swept it away."_

"I, for one, am getting _so_ sick of this guy." Rossi exclaimed in disgust. "Just say what you mean, already!"

"Maybe he already is." Derek suggested. "How's the media been handling all of this?"

"Avery said they've been going bonkers over the bombings." Spencer replied.

"'Bonkers'?"

Spencer only shrugged.

J.J shifted in her seat. "So the bombings are getting press, but the murders aren't... if the unsub is following the news, he may think we haven't picked up on the connection."

"Which would mean he's less intelligent or more naïve than he'd like to think." Derek concluded "to think we wouldn't withhold information from the media."

"The media is treating the bombings and the murder of Tyler Adams as completely unrelated." Spencer mused. "This is him assuring us they are related, and not to go grasping at shadows."

He looked to his teammates, who stared blankly back at him.

"He's leaving us clues. On purpose. All the answers to finding him are in these crime-scenes."

"He wants to be found." Hotchner said.

"Then each of these murders could be speaking directly to an individual person." Rossi waved a hand in frustrated resignation "Which means we could have been right all along."

"This guy feels oppressed by someone." J.J reiterated. "So if he's Aesop, the slave, that means we have to find his master."

"It's gonna be a long night." Derek sighed.

"Yes, it is, but don't despair, my lovlies." Garcia reassured "Dinner is on the way, courtesy your friendly neighborhood computer genius."

"You are an angel, Garcia." Rossi grinned at the tech analyst.

"And don't you forget it, sir." Garcia grinned.

The smell of Chinese takeaway wafted up from the white paper boxes on the table. While the others ate at their desk, away from the photos and frustration of the crime scene, Spencer sat silently, hands splayed in front of him, fingertips touching. He unconsciously brushed his thumbs against his lower lip in thought as he stared at the photos on the white board, trying to connect them like jigsaw pieces from what seemed vastly different puzzles.

"I know that look." J.J interrupted Spencer's thoughts. "What d'ya see, Spence?"

"Our unsub lacks confidence." He said at length.

"How do you figure?" J.J fell back into her chair, reaching for an opened box of lo mein and an extra pair of chopsticks.

"All these things, the bombings, strangulation, electrocution... when combined with the notes, they paint the picture of a sociopath who doesn't care who or how hey specificity and taunting nature of the notes says he has a detailed narrative in his head where he is the intellectual superior, but here's the thing – his time line is off."

He turned to her intently. She nodded slowly, processing his theory.

"Someone with such a detailed narrative is more likely to take his time. Spread the killings out and enjoy taunting us as long as possible." She said.

"The fact that he's moving so quickly says he wants to finish out his narrative before he gets caught." Spencer continued.

"He's not confident enough that he'll remain hidden if he takes his time." J.J replied. "Let's get the others in here. You might be on to something."

"Well if that's the case, then whoever it is is close to the Bureau." Derek remarked after Spencer and J.J had caught them up.

"Or at least assumes he's close." Rossi corrected "He's afraid he's being too obvious with his clues – In his head he's giving us neon signs and a road map."

"The fact that we haven't released a profile would be causing him excitement and anxiety." Said Hotchner.

"Making him even more dangerous." Finished Derek. "Especially to his target."

"Who we still haven't identified." Said J.J

"You are really not going to like me right now." Garcia's apologetic tone interrupted the team and they turned to see her standing in the doorway. "But please keep in mind I did buy you dinner."

"What is it?" Aaron Hotchner frowned at the manilla folder in Penelope Garcia's hands.

"The body of one Brian Nolan was just discovered by the police. Normally they would have assumed an accidental overdose, but there was a note." Garcia swallowed, pulling a photograph from the envelope and handing it to Agent Hotchner "They don't know if it's related, but it's definitely weird."

"Do you know me now?" Hotchner read the note aloud to the team.


	6. Unsub

"He's gearing up for his final kill." J.J said nervously with a look of mild panic.

"Unfortunately, we don't know who his target is." Derek nearly yelled in frustration.

Spencer stood looking at the board, the fingertips of his right hand tapping against his thumb in thought almost as quickly as his brain organized the thoughts that had for so long seemed so impossibly scattered. He was only vaguely aware of the conversation going on around him as everything seemed to fall into place.

"Fill us in on the victim." Hotchner looked to Garcia, who opened the folder and handed a printout to each of the team.

"Brian Nolan, 24 year old Master's student found at as subway station in DC. Evidence of intravenous drug use and an empty bottle of dihydromor...morphi -"

"Dihidrymorphinone." Spencer finished, his eyes fixed on the board.

"That's right." Garcia said. "How di-"

"It's Dilaudid." He muttered quietly. "I know who the unsub is after."

For the first time, he took his eyes away from the board, turning to face his teammates.

"He's after me."

"Whoa, wait, Reid -" Derek began.

"No, it makes sense, it does." The young doctor's eyes shifted back and forth as though reading invisible text. "The victims aren't linked to each other – they aren't linked to the _unsub_. They were picked because something about them would resonate with _me. _Eleanor Marx was in and out of rehab and mental health facilities; she was a diagnosed schizophrenic who was off her medication, and electrocuting her – well, that could be a reference to electroshock therapy. He found a young man and injected him with an overdose of Dilaudid as a reference to Tobias Hankel."

"And Tyler Adams?" Rossi said.

"When I was twelve..." Reid trailed off. "Kyle Weston."

"What's that?" J.J asked.

"I know the killer. His name is Kyle Weston. We went to high school together and started Caltech the same year – he dropped out after his first semester. He – he terrorized me through high school."

"Well, it looks like his uncle terrorized him." Garcia interrupted and Spencer realized she had crossed the room and was once again sitting behind her laptop, clicking away at the keys as she caught up on the details of Kyle Weston's life. "Looks like he was a bit of a spitfire as a kid – some behavioral concerns. Looks like when he turned 13 his parents had had enough – sent him to live with his uncle Robert Weston, a former drill sergeant who – oof – took the "tough love" a little too far. Multiple admissions to the hospital throughout his teen years for suspicious injuries. On top of that, the parents died in a car accident when Kyle was 14 and his uncle Robert gained full custody."

"Parents probably had no idea about the abuse." Rossi speculated.

"Looks like Robert Weston ran a tight ship, at least grades-wise – Kyle Weston graduated second to Boy Wonder here and, yup, attended Caltech for one semester before...yeesh! Completely spiraling out of control, and I'm talkin' full-on nose dive. Failed out of school, went off-grid for a while before enrolling and finally completing a degree and settling in the DC area where... oh..."

"What?" Hotchner asked.

"Looks like Weston applied for the FBI. More than once. He never got past the psych eval."

"Who could blame him?" Asked J.J

"So you got a troubled kid sent to live with an abusive uncle. Academic performance was important so – what, maybe the uncle beat him when he did poorly." Derek started constructing the home life of the young Kyle Weston.

"Only I go to school with a twelve-year-old who beats me at every academic level." Rossi continued. "His success is oppressive to me."

"And only becomes worse as time goes on." J.J finished.

"Out of the house at college," Derek shrugged "It's a whole new academic world. Kid can't handle the anxiety. Nose-dives. Meanwhile, boy-genius keeps succeeding."

"I'd do anything to make everyone see I'm just as good as he is." Rossi nodded.

"But what made him snap?" Derek asked. "Why now?"

"I think I can answer that." Garcia said. "Robert Weston died almost three weeks ago. Liver disease."

"Well that'd do it." Derek conceded.

"Okay, we know who he is." Hotchner said "Now we need to find out where he is and what he's planning to do next."

"Assuming he's sticking to his own narrative of himself as Aesop that would make me his master Xanthus, a Greek philosopher." Spencer replied "according to the _Aesop Romance _Aesop uses his gift of wisdom to humiliate him in front of his students and even sleep with his wife."

A look of terrible realization drained the color from his face.

"Oh my God, Avery."

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself." Avery Mitchell smiled sincerely as she walked with the small old woman through the gallery and to the front door.

"I did. I really did." The woman insisted "You know, you have a gift for that, uh... that... blending history and art."

"Thank you." Avery replied kindly. "Now, keep practicing that stitch, just the way we worked it tonight, and I'll see you next week."

"If my eyes don't give out before then." The old woman laughed creakily. "You know, my great-grandmother embroidered beautiful things for all her children. I -I still have a tablecloth she made."

"You'll be embroidering just like her in no time." Avery assured good-naturedly.

"Yeah, right." The woman laughed. "I'll see you next week, dear."

"Have a good night." Avery held the door open as the woman shuffled out of the gallery. "Be careful on the subway."

Avery closed and locked the door, flipping the "Open" sign to "Closed" and breathing the sigh of a day nearly done. Finished with her final class of the evening, she turned, resting her back against the cool glass door and thinking about the paperwork and pile of bills sitting in her office.

She thought about Spencer. She wondered how the case was coming. She reached into her pocket, withdrawing the small envelope with the typed story that had been left on her chair in the studio. She looked it over again, trying to decide why it had unnerved her at first.

"Kids' story." She muttered to herself, tossing the envelope into the trash and turning her thoughts to another envelope she knew was sitting in her office.

The smell of smoke caught her attention and she looked around. Faint wisps of smoke curled from the studio door.

"What the hell?" Avery jogged to the back of the gallery, opening the door to find a wave of flame consuming the back half of the studio.

Her eyes watered as she coughed and choked on smoke, feeling against the wall for the mandatory fire extinguisher she had installed. She could feel the metal casing for it, but the device itself was gone.

Suddenly, she felt a shove from behind

A blinding pain in her head.

A sharp thud as she fell to the floor.

Darkness.


	7. The Call

"We're at Weston's apartment. He's not here." Hotchner reported over his cell.

"We're on our way to the gallery. Reid says she usually works late." Derek hung up and dialed another number on his phone as Reid once again tried to reach Avery.

"She's still not answering." Spencer reported as the bureau car sped through the city streets. He hung up and dialed another number.

"Whatcha got for me, mama?" Derek asked the cell phone propped between himself and the doctor.

"I have forwarded Weston's picture and his profile to... everyone." Garcia responded over the speaker. "And I mean everyone. If this guy's been hiding anywhere other than a very dark, dark hole under a very heavy rock for the past few months, we'll find him."

Derek glanced over to the man in the passenger seat.

"Y'hear that, Kid?"

"We'll get him, Reid." Garcia's voice was soft and reassuring.

Reid sat forward in his seat, staring intently out the windsheild.

"What's that?" He asked, pointing to billows of black smoke visible over the next block.

"Ah, no." Derek muttered, hitting the siren and cutting through traffic.

The street was packed with emergency vehicles and spectators. Barricades held back the crowd while the firemen worked against the blaze.

"You gotta stay back." One of the emergency responders demanded, barring Spencer and Derek from getting any closer.

"We're FBI." Spencer held out his ID "There's a woman in that building."

"My men have already done a sweep." Answered the responder. "There was no one in there."

Spencer grit his teeth in anxiety and frustration. His shoulders slumped. He tried and failed to think of what to do next.

His cell phone buzzed and he reached for it, looking at the caller ID and breathing a sharp sigh.

"Avery, thank God -"

"It had to go this far for you to figure it out." A man's voice jeered. It chilled Spencer to his bones and froze him in place. In an instant it felt as though his stomach dropped out from under him and his spine was made of ice.

"If you were really as smart as everybody thinks this never would've happened."

"You're right, Kyle." Spencer shot a meaningful look to Derek, who immediately took out his phone.

"Garcia I need a trace on Reid's phone right now." He said quietly, giving Reid the signal to keep Kyle Weston talking.

"You're right. This is my fault." Spencer continued. "It was always my fault, wasn't it? Even back then. But Avery has nothing to do with this, okay? You wanted my attention, you've got it, so tell me where Avery is and then you and I, we'll talk." His mouth was dry. He felt smothered by a force greater than the smoke or the surrounding crowd.

"Don't pretend to empathize." Kyle sneered. "Your girlfriend is fine for the time being. And if you're really as clever as you think, she'll stay that way. For while, at least. You've got 90 minutes."

The line went dead. Spencer looked to Derek.

"Please tell me you got something." Derek Morgan pleaded with the woman on the other end of the line.

"He's in a car. Heading North."

"Anything else?"

"That's it. He shut the phone off after the call."

"He's moving." Derek relayed the message to Spencer as he turned the phone's speaker on.

"We need his possible locations." Spencer said, rushing back toward the car.

"Looking." Garcia said.

"We need them _now, _Garcia!" Reid shouted.

"I – woah!" Penelope snapped, taken aback by his tone. "Okay, I don't have anything in Kyle Weston's name, but get this, Kyle's parents owned a vacation home North of you, and Robert Weston's been paying on it since their death. Looks like he retired there after Kyle finished high school."

"That's where he's headed." Derek said.

"I'll tell the team to meet you there." Garcia said before ending the call.

"You okay?" Morgan sideglanced his passenger, who was staring unseeingly out the front window. "Reid?"

"This isn't going to happen again." Spencer said, his voice harder and more determined than Morgan had ever heard it.

"Reid, this isn't - "

"It is." Reid said. "It is, but it's not going to end that way again."

The sirens blared as they sped toward the highway.

The first thing Avery registered was the pain. A throbbing pain that sent bolts down her spine and turned her stomach if she moved. She lay still, drifting in and out of consciousness and slowly becoming aware of her surroundings. She lay on a filthy mattress. Her hands and feet were bound with what felt like heavy duty zip-ties. The room was dark, but as her eyes adjusted she could make out the cold concrete floor surrounding the mattress.

"Hello?" She choked out, her throat dry and smokey. She strained her eyes and the rest of the room slowly came into focus. A soft light filtered in from above, and despite the stiffness of her neck, Avery looked up to see a small, grimy, disused skylight. Exposed studs held up the thick walls. The air was muggy and thick, as there was no opening to provide ventilation. A small red blinking caught her attention, and she squinted to see what she could against the shadows. Faintly, she could see a mass of wires and metal, extending around the frame of a sturdy door, and the little red spot blinking ominously, like the ticking of seconds on a timer.


	8. The Vacation House

"Kyle Weston was terrible to me in high school." Reid sounded distracted as they sped north on the highway. "He beat me up every chance he got. I never knew his uncle beat him."

"You were twelve, Reid." Derek sideglanced his passenger.

"If I had known then -"

"Don't do that." Morgan said firmly. "This isn't your fault, kid."

Spencer didn't answer.

"Reid, look at me." Derek insisted. The younger man complied and Derek took his eyes from the road long enough for Spencer to know he was deathly serious. "You cannot let yourself think that way."

Derek turned his attention back to the road. "Weston is a killer. Just like all the others we put away. We're gonna get him, too."

Reid watched the road ahead of them, his mind replaying years of schoolyard abuse. Years of bruises hidden from his mother. Broken lips and black eyes and dodging teachers' probing questions. After twenty years, he still remembered the pain, being curled on the ground, hard shoes repeatedly kicking his abdomen. The words "you tell anyone, you die, freak." echoed through the years, sparking a new thought.

"How far are we from Robert Weston's home?" He asked abruptly.

"We're about ten minutes out." Derek replied. "Hotch and the others should be there any minute."

"He won't be there." Spencer said, fishing for his phone in his pocket.

"What d'you -"

"Garcia, you said Robert Weston's home was originally a vacation home." Spencer spoke rapidly. "Can you check to see if there are any guest or caretaker houses on the property. It would be away from the main house, well out of the line of site."

"Pulling up satellite images now." Garcia replied. "I don't see anything, but... okay, wait...I _do _see something it looks like a driveway, it leads into a crop of trees on the northwest corner of the property – _way _far from the house. Man, this is a big property. Okay, I can't tell for sure that it's a _house_, but there is definitely something there."

"Thanks, Garcia." Reid ended the call.

"What are you thinkin', kid?" Derek asked.

"Weston feared his uncle. That fear is part of who he is – in high school, whenever he'd beat me up he'd tell me not to tell anyone. I used to think he was just scared the teachers would find out, but -"

"But every time he got in trouble, he caught hell back home." Derek finished.

"Even if he doesn't realize it, he's still scared of his uncle." The young doctor stated. "He wouldn't want to be in Robert Weston's house."

"He's going to go somewhere his uncle couldn't see him."

"But still familiar." Spencer finished.

"I'll call Hotch." Derek reached for his phone.

"Kyle Weston doesn't want to deal with the police – he wants to deal with me." Spencer said. "If a team of cops and hostage negotiators show up it'll disrupt his narrative and it could send him into a spiral."

Derek nodded. "I'll tell him."

The Weston's vacation home sat on a sprawling estate. Once a farm, the original buildings had been torn down and the land replanted to sweeping lawns and strategic outcrops of trees long before Kyle Weston's parents took possession of it.

Bypassing the long driveway that led the winding way up to the main house, Morgan and Reid continued down the quiet street, turning instead onto a gravel path some ways north of the home. Trees rose up on either side of the road, limbs stretching overhead, blocking out all but small, intermittent patches of the midnight sky. Visible ahead, in a small clearing, sat a rundown house. Originally occupied by the groundskeeper who maintained the property when the family was away, the now abandoned home had long-since fallen into disrepair. A detached sat perpendicular to the front of the house. Through the gap between the house and garage, evidence of an overgrown backyard was barely visible. Somewhere deep inside the house a light was on, its glow faint through the windows.

Derek parked, and Spencer got out of the car his eyes fixed on the door to the house as he drew his gun. Morgan drew his own firearm and followed at a close distance.


	9. Kyle Weston

The door swung open easily. The ancient linoleum peeled and bubbled along the entryway floor, and the agents had to watch their steps as they carefully moved into the house. In front of them was a narrow mud room. To the right, a short hallway led to the rest of the house. The lino gave way to worn and mildewed carpeting, spanning the length of a nearly empty living room. The smell of dust and mold hung in the air. To the left, an bare doorway led to the cramped, dark kitchen. Across the room, another hallway stretched through to the rest of the house. Somewhere toward the back, a dim light stretched weakly down the hall.

Morgan secured the kitchen swiftly and silently as Spencer crossed the living room, making his way down the hall and toward the light.

"Kyle Weston," Spencer called out in a voice he hoped sounded authoritative. "It's Spencer Reid. I wanna talk."

There was a moment of silence.

"Come in." Kyle Weston's voice echoed from the room.

Spencer cast a quick glance to Derek and holstered his gun, before gently pushing the door open and slipping into the room.

The room had likely once been a bedroom. The only window had been boarded up with plywood, which had warped and discolored from time and rain.

Kyle Weston was shorter than Spencer remembered, and looked older than he had imagined. Time, or maybe drugs, had taken a heavy toll. In his left hand, the murderer held a gun. In his right, a small black box with switches set into it. He scoffed when the agent entered the room.

"You know, freak, I don't know why, but I'm surprised." He shook his head, a grin of disturbed amusement distorting his features. "I really had hoped you'd go to my uncle's place."

Kyle shook his head. "You know... it would have made it so much more satisfying when I did this."

With a flick of his thumb, he flipped one of the switches on the black box. A deafening crash like a hundred fireworks going off at once filled the air and shook the walls with its force. The orange light from the explosion flashed through the front windows of the house. Just outside the door, Morgan looked down the hallway, where light from the flames cast shadows of the surrounding trees onto the living room wall.

Only a short ways off, trekking through the outcrop of trees, Hotchner, Rossi and J.J also heard the explosion. Turning in horror, they saw the vacation home decay into a ball of flame, smoke rising up and blotting out the stars overhead.

Spencer jumped at the unexpected noise. Kyle laughed as he attempted to regain himself.

"You know what?" He said dryly. "Still satisfying."

The narrow rectangle of light from the skylight above her illuminated for a brief and terrifying moment as the blast rattled the walls around Avery. She cried out instinctively, shaking from fear and from stress. Her body ached. The air was stifling, but she shivered. Despite the beads of sweat forming around her forehead, she couldn't seem to stay warm. The light in the corner remained steady, and Avery stared at it, knowing what it meant but finding the concept utterly foreign. The more she tried to wrap her mind around what was happening, the more abstract it all seemed. Tears stained her face, and she turned her attention back to the only thing she could control.

_Just breathe._ She told herself. _One in. One out._

Shakily, she obeyed her own command, as the blinking red light kept time.

"That was a good plan." Spencer licked his lips. His throat was dry and his tongue seemed to stick to the roof of his mouth. "Get rid of me and your uncle's memory in one blow..."

"You two ruined my life." Kyle snapped savagely.

"I know..." Spencer nodded. "I know that now. But Kyle, I didn't know what your uncle was doing when we were kids."

"Like you would've cared." Kyle sneered.

"I like to think I would have." Spencer admitted sincerely.

"Do you know what he did every time I brought homework home? Every test? Every report card?" Kyle spat. "He'd ask how _you_ did."

"And it never mattered what you said." The younger man said empathetically. "He was just looking for a reason to beat you."

"You think that's _all _he did?" Kyle Weston asked incredulously, the pain in his voice swelling, making his words ragged.

A new level of understanding hit Reid.

"I didn't know." He repeated.

"You had everything." Weston accused bitterly. "And because of you, I had nothing."

He leveled his gun at Spencer.

Dead leaves and underbrush crackled and snapped underfoot as agents Hotchner, Rossi, and J.J tried to make their way quietly through the trees. The distance between the trunks widened and before them, the back of a house came into view. A small, metal-sided shed backed up into the trees, surrounded by an overgrown lawn of stumps and knee-high grass stretching from the tree line to the back of the house.

Slivers of light spilled from gaps in a boarded up window.

"It's my turn to have everything." Kyle said.

"Okay." Spencer raised his hands in front of him, showing Weston his palms in a gesture of surrender. "Okay... I deserve it, Kyle. I do. But before you do, tell me where Avery is. She has nothing to do with this. You can let her go."

Kyle scoffed.

"No, I think I'll hang on to her for a while. I mean, if I kill a fed, I'm going to need some kind of insurance, right? Besides." He lowered the gun, gesturing with it as though it were an extension of his hand. "I've been watching you for a while, freak, and I want to figure out what you see in her."

The agents stopped at the edge of the shed. An unfamiliar voice was only barely audible through the boarded window across the yard. It sounded agitated, and rose and fell as though having a conversation, the other half of which could not be heard.

"Morgan and Reid are already in there." Hotchner told the others in a low voice. "We have to trust them to keep Weston distracted and we need to secure the property."

Inside the shed, Avery raised her head. Something was different. Her scattered thoughts made it difficult to discern what had changed, but _something _was different. She thought hard, trying to find focus in her confusion.

_The sound_. She realized. _The sound is different_. There was talking. Just outside, separated only by a layer of plywood and aluminum, someone was talking.

"Help." She muttered softly, regaining control over her own voice. "Help!"

Kyle smirked, immensely enjoying the change in his foe's expression at the mention of his hostage; a sort of helpless anger, and a fear he had when they were both much younger. "I mean sure, she's cute, but... people with our intelligence? I mean she can't challenge you." He shrugged. "So I assume she's good in bed."

He looked Spencer in the eye, gauging his reaction with satisfaction. He raised his eyebrows and his gun. "I guess I'll find out."

"Help!" Avery screamed, adrenaline surging. She turned and pounded her bound fists against the wall. The plywood thudded, reverberating against the aluminum siding with surprising crashes. "Help!"

"What the -" Kyle was startled by the unorchestrated noise coming from the back yard, and instinctively glanced toward the boarded window, then turned his attention back to Spencer Reid.

Shots rang out through the property.


	10. Rescue

"Go." Hotch ordered J.J and Rossi, who rushed toward the house, their guns drawn, while he stayed near the shed.

"Avery!" He called through the wall "It's Aaron Hotchner. We're going to get you out."

He reached for the radio strapped to the shoulder of his blue Kevlar vest. "We need an ambulance down here." He sent the message up to the force at the vacation home, who had now been joined by firetrucks and more emergency vehicles as they fought the fire.

Through the wall, he could hear Avery's terrified, grateful sobbing, along with the words "There's a bomb."

Derek Morgan burst into the room, gun drawn. Kyle Weston lay on the floor, blood seeping from the bullet holes in his chest and soaking into the already stained brown carpet.

Reid lowered his gun as Morgan crossed the room, checking the fallen man's neck for a pulse. J.J entered through the sliding kitchen door. Here footsteps could be heard through the house as she ran to the back bedroom.

Derek said nothing. His expression communicated all necessary information to J.J, who holstered her weapon.

"We found Avery, Spence." J.J said gently.

Though the world seemed to be moving in slow motion, Spencer Reid found himself standing in the backyard without memory of leaving the bedroom.

Sirens wailed in the distance, nearing the house. J.J and Rossi ran to meet the squad at the end of the driveway.

"Morgan, I need your help!" Hotchner motioned for Morgan, who ran to join him at the shed.

"The door's rigged. We need to get in through there." He motioned quickly to the small skylight. Lacing his fingers together, he boosted Derek onto the low roof of the shed.

Morgan yanked on the window, but years of disuse had rusted the hinges and rendered it immovable in the casing. Derek looked to the men on the ground and shook his head.

"Avery!" Spencer called. "Avery, it's me – it's Spencer. Morgan can't get the window open, he's going to have to break it. You need to stand clear."

Hotchner handed Morgan a sturdy bit of fallen branch and Morgan raised it, bringing it down with a high-pitched crash, shattering the glass window. He ran the branch along the edges of the window, knocking out loose bits and the sharpest shards still clinging to the perimeter before leaning in. Balanced against the upper edge of the window casement, he leaned in.

Avery looked small, huddled against the wall. With her wrists and ankles bound, it was difficult to stand.

"It's alright." He reassured steadily. He reached down, able to lock his hands around Avery's outstretched arms and pull her slowly up. Morgan eased her onto the roof of the shed. Pulling a Swiss army knife from his pocket, he cut the zip-ties.

Police officers, paramedics, and bomb technicians began flooding the back yard as Morgan guided Avery down from the roof, into Spencer's waiting arms.

The world resumed its normal pace, and Spencer let go a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He held Avery tightly. She buried her face against his chest, her entire body shaking. Spencer ran a hand comfortingly through the hair at the back of her head, feeling the thick knot the blow from the fire extinguisher had left. Her right temple was bruised and bloodied from falling to the ground.

"It's okay." He soothed, his voice breaking. "It's okay."

An EMT approached.

"29 year old female, multiple head injuries,at least one requiring stitches. Symptoms of shock, and she probably has a concussion." Spencer spoke quickly, releasing his hold on Avery only slightly and walking with her toward the ambulance parked in front of the house.

Reluctantly, he stepped away from the back of the ambulance, allowing the EMTs to do their job. Behind them and past the ambulance, another team of medics wheeled a gurney out through the front door, its passenger contained in a black bag. Reid watched as they loaded the body into another ambulance.

"Hey."

Hotchner's voice caught his attention, and Reid turned his head. His boss stood at his shoulder, looking at him with a stony expression betrayed only by the glint of concern in the eyes.

"You okay?" Hotchner asked.

"What?"

Hotchner nodded slightly toward the closing doors of the ambulance.

"Derek filled me in." He said. "I'll wait for your reports, but... you made the right call, Reid."

Spencer nodded. "I know."

"You shouldn't feel guilty."

There was a pause as Spencer's attention turned from the ambulance driving away to the one nearby. He watched the EMTs ready Avery for the trip to the hospital, considering everything – past, present, and future – very carefully.

"I don't." He said at last in a calm voice. He looked to Hotch. "I'm going to ride with Avery to the hospital."

A hint of a smile crossed Aaron Hotchner's face as he watched the youngest member of the team climb into the emergency vehicle and settle himself next to the young woman on the gurney, tightly holding her hand.


	11. Epilogue

The noise of machines humming and people talking nearby were the first things Avery registered before she opened her eye

The hospital room was dim, lit only by a reading light near the head of the bed. Spencer sat in a chair beside her, his arms crossed on the bed, his head head resting on them near her hip. To Avery, it looked as though an unwelcome sleep had overtaken him. His face bore signs of the exhaustion she had come to recognize whenever he finished a case.

Avery smiled slightly, running her fingertips gently through his curling hair, then resting her hand on his. Spencer stirred and awoke.

"You're awake." He said, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes as though he had been caught doing something wrong.

She looked pale against the hospital gown, he noted, but her color had definitely improved. The bruising around her temple was angry and purple, but the blood had been cleared away and the wound just above the corner of her eyebrow had been stitched neatly.

"Hey." She smiled, speaking softly. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay." He reassured, taking her hand in his. "How do you feel?"

Avery took a deep breath, doing a mental assessment before answering the unusually difficult question.

"Kind of... fuzzy?"

"They gave you a benzodiazapine so you'd rest, that's a common side effect." He said.

She nodded slightly, then frowned. "I... I don't... remember much." She admitted.

Spencer nodded. "You were hit pretty hard."

Avery inhaled sharply, her body tensing as the few bits of what she could remember played through her head.

"Hey," Spencer called her back to the moment, squeezing her hand. "Don't try to remember it now. It'll come back on it's own, and I promise -" His voice was insistent as he locked eyes with her "when it does, I'll be here."

_Intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn – Daniel Keyes._


	12. Teaser - Stranger than Fiction

_To read more in this series, check out the upcoming story "Stranger than Fiction"_

"Big plans for the weekend?" Agent Derek Morgan asked Jennifer Jareau as they walked through the hall, each carrying small cardboard flats filled with cardboard coffee cups.

"Will's _finally_ got a weekend off." J.J answered.

"Alright." Derek teased. "So a little _alone_ time, then?"

"Taking Henry apple-picking and shopping for a Halloween costume." J.J responded dryly, pushing open the door to the BAU bull pen.

"Look who I ran into." J.J said to Spencer Reid and David Rossi, who sat talking quietly to one another at Spencer's desk.

"Brought you coffee." Derek indicated the cardboard flat, which he set on a desk, picking the cups out of their holders and distributing them. "Hey, Reid, how's Avery doin'?"

"Uh, good." Spencer nodded. "She's seeing her therapist less and the nightmares seemed to have stopped, for the most part."

"How d'you like living with her?" Derek asked. Spencer cocked his head to the side in confusion. "J.J told me." Derek confessed.

Spencer looked over his shoulder to J.J, who simply shrugged.

"It's fine." He thought a moment. "She keeps forgetting where she put her keys." He said seriously, looking to Derek as though he should understand the doctor's confusion and annoyance.

Derek tried not to grin and J.J stifled a laugh. "Yeah, well," she said in a tone of overdone empathy "Well, bare with it. Living with someone can be a _big_ adjustment."

"What ho, Crime fighters?" Garcia chirped, joining the team at the desk, a stack of folders in her hands. "Ooh, coffee! Did you bring me some?"

"No, I did not." Derek said "Because I brought you something better."

"Oooh!" Garcia wiggled with excitement as she took the cup from Morgan and lifted the travel lid.

"Hot chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon." Derek informed her.

"Just how I like my men." She looked at him meaningfully.

"Careful," Derek warned. "Don't make promises you can't keep."

Garcia just laughed. Aaron Hotchner appeared in the doorway, glancing to the others as he headed into the conference room.

"That's right." Garcia said in response, holding up the folders in her hand. "There will be time for our steamy love affair, but it is not right now. You've got a case."


End file.
